George Clooney coffee pods banned: bad for the environment - and the quality of your latte?

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Authorities in Hamburg have gone cold on coffee capsules, banning them from council buildings on environmental grounds. But despite their questionable green credentials – and the fact that many experts don't believe they make the best brew – the rise of single-serve coffee seems unstoppable.

Since George Clooney, the patron saint of coffee capsules, first urged us to ditch packets for pods in 2006, the world has gone weak at the knees for the stuff. Consumer research group Kantar Worldpanel reports that UK spending on coffee pods rose by more than 30 per cent in the year to June 2015, when we drank £109 million worth.

Pod coffee machines range from £49.99 through to £499.99, while the capsules comes in at around 30-40p per cup – significantly more expensive than making coffee from a packet of quality beans

That equates to roughly 260 million actual capsules – and that’s just in the UK. As of 2012, high-end brand Nespresso had reportedly sold more than 27 billion pods worldwide since launching them in 1986. That’s a lot of packaging and it has to go somewhere.

In its drive to reduce environmental waste, Hamburg officials produced a 150-page “Guide to Green Procurement”, which said coffee pods caused “unnecessary resource consumption and waste generation, and often contain polluting aluminium.” A government official said the capsules couldn’t be recycled easily because they were made of both plastic and aluminium.

Many of us don't care about the fate of our coffee podsCredit:
Piotr Skubisz/Alamy

A spokeswoman for Nespresso declined to reveal how many of its used pods are recycled. But she said the company had recycling systems in 31 countries and was committed to the green disposal of its packaging. “Aluminium provides significant environmental advantages,” she added. “It has the unique advantage of being infinitely recyclable and eliminates the need for any additional packaging or overwrap to protect freshness.”

But it appears that many of us don’t really care about the fate of empty coffee pods. Research by Harris Interactive for trade magazine The Grocer last year found that 22 per cent of Brits own a coffee pod machine, while 10 per cent believe the pods are “very bad for the environment".

And we’re not much bothered by the cost of capsule coffee, either. Pod coffee machines range from £49.99 through to £499.99, while the capsules comes in at around 30-40p per cup – significantly more expensive than making coffee from a packet of quality beans. Yet, according to Euromonitor, sales of pod machines in the UK increased seven-fold between 2010 and 2015. Nespresso machines are even found in the kitchens of around 30 per cent of the world's 2,400 Michelin-starred restaurants.

Pod coffee is significantly more expensive than making coffee from a packet of quality beansCredit:
Paul Williams/Alamy

Until recently, the specialty coffee industry has studiously ignored the capsule craze. Heads bowed over their chemex and aeropress, the closest a coffee aficionado has come to a pod is swimming with dolphins. But all that is changing.

The Pact Coffee subscription services recently launched a range of coffee pods, and Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, UK barista champion and co-owner of the Colonna & Small's and Colonna & Hunter cafes, is launching a pod range at this year’s London Coffee Festival. So are we about to see a battle of the pods, with hipster coffee specialists taking on capsule big boys at their own game?

It’s fine, convenient, but too much packaging and with a little bit of effort you can make something more delicious that is also cheaper

James Hoffman

Not really, says Chloe Callow, editor of Caffeine Magazine. “There are some in the specialty world that have identified a gap in the market for higher quality pods,“ she says. “For a long time the specialty coffee industry has only really catered to those that buy into their own ideals and tastes. The industry is starting to recognise they have to cater to a larger coffee drinking coffee demographic and look outside the niche specialty world, in order to run a sustainable business."

To that end, Caffeine Magazine experts are about to put pod coffee brands through a taste-test and publish the results in the April issue. In the meantime, what’s the verdict of the man who should know? Is pod coffee really any good - or is it all about convenience?

A cup of coffeeCredit:
Freddie/Alamy

“I’ve often described them as microwave meals,” says James Hoffman, CEO of Square Mile Coffee Roasters, World Barista Champion and author of The World Atlas of Coffee. “It’s fine, convenient, but too much packaging and with a little bit of effort you can make something more delicious that is also cheaper,” he says. Hoffman does concede some pods produce “pretty good” coffee - although he won’t reveal which ones he believes are best.

It’s all down to the quality of the coffee that goes inside them, he says. "Staleness isn’t really the issue, " he says. "The disadvantage of pods is that they’re made on a much larger scale and use a more commoditised quality of coffee. The desired cup is also made to be more widely appealing by making it less characterful, less likely to offend.”

Does he plan to produce his own range of specialty coffee pods? Tellingly, the answer is a firm no.